J. Savulescu and Ingmar Persson argue that artificial moral enhancement is now essential if humanity - Polidicks

Philosophy news: [t]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6XTg0V_CxRc/UkFM97clNwI/AAAAAAAAASw/DhApIqpndCw/s1600/Moral+Machines.jpg[/t] [QUOTE] Where our ancestors’ tools shaped the few acres on which they lived, the technologies we use today have effects across the world, and across time, with the hangovers of climate change and nuclear disaster stretching far into the future. The pace of scientific change is exponential. But has our moral psychology kept up? Evolutionary pressures have not developed for us a psychology that enables us to cope with the moral problems our new power creates. Our political and economic systems only exacerbate this. [B]Our Natural Moral Psychology[/B] Our sense of morality developed around the imbalance between our capacities to harm and to benefit on the small scale, in groups the size of a small village or a nomadic tribe – no bigger than a hundred and fifty or so people. To take the most basic example, we naturally feel bad when we cause harm to others within our social groups. And commonsense morality links responsibility directly to causation: the more we feel we caused an outcome, the more we feel responsible for it. So causing a harm feels worse than neglecting to create a benefit. The set of rights that we have developed from this basic rule includes rights not to be harmed, but not rights to receive benefits. And we typically extend these rights only to our small group of family and close acquaintances. When we lived in small groups, these rights were sufficient to prevent us harming one another. But in the age of the global society and of weapons with global reach, they cannot protect us well enough. We naturally focus on the immediate future, and on our immediate circle of friends. We discount the distant future in making judgements, and can only empathise with a few individuals based on their proximity or similarity to us, rather than, say, on the basis of their situations. So our ability to cooperate, applying our notions of fairness and justice, is limited to our circle, a small circle of family and friends. Strangers, or out-group members, in contrast, are generally mistrusted, their tragedies downplayed, and their offences magnified. We feel responsible if we have individually caused a bad outcome, but less responsible if we are part of a large group causing the same outcome and our own actions can’t be singled out. There is a well-known cooperation or coordination problem called ‘the tragedy of the commons’. In its original terms, it asks whether a group of village herdsmen sharing common pasture can trust each other to the extent that it will be rational for each of them to reduce the grazing of their own cattle when necessary to prevent over-grazing. One herdsman alone cannot achieve the necessary saving if the others continue to over-exploit the resource. If they simply use up the resource he has saved, he has lost his own chance to graze but has gained no long term security, so it is not rational for him to self-sacrifice. It is rational for an individual to reduce his own herd’s grazing only if he can trust a sufficient number of other herdsmen to do the same. Consequently, if the herdsmen do not trust each other, most of them will fail to reduce their grazing, with the result that they will all starve. The tragedy of the commons can serve as a simplified small-scale model of our current environmental problems, which are caused by billions of polluters, each of whom contributes some individually-undetectable amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Unfortunately, in such a model, the larger the number of participants the more inevitable the tragedy, since the larger the group, the less concern and trust the participants have for one another. Also, it is harder to detect free-riders in a larger group, and humans are prone to free ride, benefiting from the sacrifice of others while refusing to sacrifice themselves. Moreover, individual damage is likely to become imperceptible, preventing effective shaming mechanisms and reducing individual guilt. In addition, our bias towards the near future leaves us less able to adequately appreciate the graver effects of our actions, as they will occur in the more remote future. Given the psychological obstacles preventing us from voluntarily dealing with climate change, effective changes would need to be enforced by legislation. However, politicians in democracies are unlikely to propose such legislation. Effective measures will need to be tough, and so are unlikely to win a political leader a second term in office. Can voters be persuaded to sacrifice their own comfort and convenience to protect the interests of people who are not even born yet, or to protect species of animals they have never even heard of? Will democracy ever be able to free itself from powerful industrial interests? Democracy is likely to fail. Developed countries have the technology and wealth to deal with climate change, but we do not have the political will. [B]Moral Bioenhancement[/B] Our moral shortcomings are preventing our political institutions from acting effectively. Enhancing our moral motivation would enable us to act better for distant people, future generations, and non-human animals. One method to achieve this enhancement is already practised in all societies: moral education. Our knowledge of human biology – in particular of genetics and neurobiology – is beginning to enable us to directly affect the biological or physiological bases of human motivation, either through drugs, or through genetic selection or engineering, or by using external devices that affect the brain or the learning process. We could use these techniques to overcome the moral and psychological shortcomings that imperil the human species. We are at the early stages of such research, but there are few cogent philosophical or moral objections to the use of specifically biomedical moral enhancement – or moral bioenhancement. In fact, the risks we face are so serious that it is imperative we explore every possibility of developing moral bioenhancement technologies – not to replace traditional moral education, but to complement it. We simply can’t afford to miss opportunities. We have provided ourselves with the tools to end worthwhile life on Earth forever. Nuclear war, with the weapons already in existence today could achieve this alone. If we must possess such a formidable power, it should be entrusted only to those who are both morally enlightened and adequately informed. [B]Objection 1: Too Little, Too Late?[/B] We already have the weapons, and we are already on the path to disastrous climate change, so perhaps there is not enough time for this enhancement to take place. Moral educators have existed within societies across the world for thousands of years – Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, to name only three – yet we still lack the basic ethical skills we need to ensure our own survival is not jeopardised. As for moral bioenhancement, it remains a field in its infancy. We do not dispute this. The relevant research is in its inception, and there is no guarantee that it will deliver in time, or at all. Our claim is merely that the requisite moral enhancement is theoretically possible – [B]in other words, that we are not biologically or genetically doomed to cause our own destruction – and that we should do what we can to achieve it.[/B] [B]Objection 2: The Bootstrapping Problem[/B] The risks of misapplying any powerful technology are serious. Good moral reasoning was often overruled in small communities with simple technology, but now failure of morality to guide us could have cataclysmic consequences. A turning point was reached at the middle of the last century with the invention of the atomic bomb. [B]For the first time, continued technological progress was no longer clearly to the overall advantage of humanity. That is not to say we should therefore halt all scientific endeavour[/B]. It is possible for humankind to improve morally to the extent that we can use our new and overwhelming powers of action for the better. The very progress of science and technology increases this possibility by promising to supply new instruments of moral enhancement, which could be applied alongside traditional moral education.[/h][h=2]Objection 3: Liberal Democracy – a Panacea?[/h]In recent years we have put a lot of faith in the power of democracy. Some have even argued that democracy will bring an ‘end’ to history, in the sense that it will end social and political development by reaching its summit. Surely democratic decision-making, drawing on the best available scientific evidence, will enable government action to avoid the looming threats to our future, without any need for moral enhancement? In fact, as things stand today, it seems more likely that democracy will bring history to an end in a different sense: through a failure to mitigate human-induced climate change and environmental degradation. This prospect is bad enough, but increasing scarcity of natural resources brings an increased risk of wars, which, with our weapons of mass destruction, makes complete destruction only too plausible. Sometimes an appeal is made to the so-called ‘jury theorem’ to support the prospect of democracy reaching the right decisions: even if voters are on average only slightly more likely to get a choice right than wrong – suppose they are right 51% of the time – then, where there is a sufficiently large numbers of voters, a majority of the voters (ie, 51%) is almost certain to make the right choice. [B]However, if the evolutionary biases we have already mentioned – our parochial altruism and bias towards the near future – influence our attitudes to climatic and environmental policies, then there is good reason to believe that voters are more likely to get it wrong than right. The jury theorem then means it’s almost certain that a majority will opt for the wrong policies! [/B]Nor should we take it for granted that the right climatic and environmental policy will always appear in manifestoes. [B]Powerful business interests and mass media control might block effective environmental policy in a market economy.[/B] [B]Conclusion[/B] Modern technology provides us with many means to cause our downfall, and our natural moral psychology does not provide us with the means to prevent it. The moral enhancement of humankind is necessary for there to be a way out of this predicament. If we are to avoid catastrophe by misguided employment of our power, we need to be morally motivated to a higher degree (as well as adequately informed about relevant facts). A stronger focus on moral [B]education could go some way to achieving this, but as already remarked, this method has had only modest success during the last couple of millennia.[/B] Our growing knowledge of biology, especially genetics and neurobiology, could deliver additional moral enhancement, such as drugs or genetic modifications, or devices to augment moral education. The development and application of such techniques is risky – it is after all humans in their current morally-inept state who must apply them – but we think that our present situation is so desperate that this course of action must be investigated. [B]We have radically transformed our social and natural environments by technology, while our moral dispositions have remained virtually unchanged. We must now consider applying technology to our own nature, supporting our efforts to cope with the external environment that we have created.[/B] Biomedical means of moral enhancement may turn out to be no more effective than traditional means of moral education or social reform, but [B]they should not be rejected out of hand[/B]. Advances are already being made in this area. However, it is too early to predict how, or even if, any moral bioenhancement scheme will be achieved. [B]Our ambition is not to launch a definitive and detailed solution to climate change or other mega-problems. Perhaps there is no realistic solution. Our ambition at this point is simply to put moral enhancement in general, and moral bioenhancement in particular, on the table. Last century we spent vast amounts of resources increasing our ability to cause great harm. It would be sad if, in this century, we reject opportunities to increase our capacity to create benefits, or at least to prevent such harm.[/B][/QUOTE] [URL="https://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Moral_Enhancement"]Source[/URL]

i think the issue should be less "moral enhancement" and more "remove psychopaths/sociopaths" from the human gene pool, i don't think most people would be against such thing. that is of course, assuming such a thing can be done properly.

[QUOTE=Wizards Court;46419633]i think the issue should be less "moral enhancement" and more "remove psychopaths/sociopaths" from the human gene pool[/QUOTE] i'd say a good chunk of antisocial behavior comes from toxic environments and shitty mental health care, which is what a lot of kids grow up dealing with these days

So what does all this mean in plain english? Can anyone give me a TLDR version? I tried reading it but didnt understand a thing.

This is interesting, because they are essentially saying that humans are incapable of moral change, which is something I have observed personally through history and conflict and what have you. While we our human tendencies are the same as they were a thousand+ years ago, and our technology is vastly superior than anything we've had in the past, saying that we should use our new-found tech to augment our moral values is absurd. At best you will get a very small percentage of the population to agree with you, and the people that will are most likely the ones who aren't causing any issues in the first place. If you want change, you just have to suck it up and go slow. We move so fast now. So very fast. We expect change as fast as we expect an update to our computers, and that's bonkers. Just fucking nuts. On a purely moral scale, I'd say the implementation of bio-enhancement to our moral values would be the penultimate lapse of ethics. We would usher in an age of humanoid robots that is dependent upon medical technology to think. We'd be zombies basically. Half of what makes living interesting is the conflict. If everyone had the same opinions on everything and we all agreed on shit, life wouldn't be living, it's be existing. There would be no stress and difficulty or human experience: it would just be existing in a moral whitewash where you are biologically inclined to be pleasant. Sedated at birth to concur. While it's true that evil people aren't good and there is a lot of hate and moral disparity in the world, it's not a world worth living in if that all just goes away with an injection. We'd approach a Huxley-esque dystopia where everyone is genetically modified to be perfect, and the human element has been removed.

[QUOTE=Wizards Court;46419633] that is of course, assuming such a thing can be done properly.[/QUOTE] It can't be done imo. I posted this as a thought exercise, hoping that it would spark an interesting discussion. I find it too elitist for my taste, but it seems, not for your taste it's not.

[QUOTE=Wizards Court;46419633]i think the issue should be less "moral enhancement" and more "remove psychopaths/sociopaths" from the human gene pool, i don't think most people would be against such thing. that is of course, assuming such a thing can be done properly.[/QUOTE] You think thats what causes the issue? the issue comes from people being passive and allowing bad things to happen and accepting them as part of daily life (i type this on my HP laptop, full of chips and hardware made from materials from blood mines, and probably built by a child being paid pennies for a day of work). blaming mental illness is so closed minded and totally impractical. we need to find positive solutions. we are all complicit in the moral degradation of the world.

Things take time, if you try to speed it up it will be bad. Just like microwaving hot dogs, just like making games, just like drinking alcohol.

[QUOTE=valkery;46419723]At best you will get a very small percentage of the population to agree with you, and the people that will are most likely the ones who aren't causing any issues in the first place. If you want change, you just have to suck it up and go slow. We move so fast now. So very fast. We expect change as fast as we expect an update to our computers, and that's bonkers. Just fucking nuts. On a purely moral scale, I'd say the implementation of bio-enhancement to our moral values would be the penultimate lapse of ethics. We would usher in an age of humanoid robots that is dependent upon medical technology to think. We'd be zombies basically. Half of what makes living interesting is the conflict. If everyone had the same opinions on everything and we all agreed on shit, life wouldn't be living, it's be existing. There would be no stress and difficulty or human experience: it would just be existing in a moral whitewash where you are biologically inclined to be pleasant. Sedated at birth to concur.[/QUOTE] I think if we came to this point it would be more subtle than that. Merely altering people so that they're more inclined to offer assistance than do nothing. Simple stuff like that. You could get crazy with it though. Like I imagine that while I don't think the left/right spectrum of politics is much of a straight line you could probably reduce the amount people relate to with one side or the other. That would be an interesting can of worms.

[QUOTE=barrab;46419796]You think thats what causes the issue? the issue comes from people being passive and allowing bad things to happen and accepting them as part of daily life (i type this on my HP laptop, full of chips and hardware made from materials from blood mines, and probably built by a child being paid pennies for a day of work). blaming mental illness is so closed minded and totally impractical. we need to find positive solutions. [B]we are all complicit in the moral degradation of the world.[/B][/QUOTE] we actually live in a era where "morality" at least in regards to the fellow human so to speak, is at an all time high, nobody would give a fuck if some group was getting obliterated/enslaved on another side of the planet a few centuries ago. and there is the issue that power in general attract sociopaths and psychopaths, and capitalism encourages both. [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/[/url] [url]http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/01/09/3140081/bridge-sociopathy/[/url] [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/fables-of-wealth.html[/url] [QUOTE=godfatherk;46419746]It can't be done imo. I posted this as a thought exercise, hoping that it would spark an interesting discussion. I find it too elitist for my taste, but it seems, not for your taste it's not.[/QUOTE] why is it elitist?

Problem is not morals its that the capitalist system has been twisted by the likes of Friedman to argue that any sort of compassion on the part of ceos and corporations is morally wrong by breaking the solum contract between the workers, and stock holders and the company, the end result is a society where p companies that are causing the Most harm are not encouraged to do the slightest to fix the damage

[QUOTE=MuTAnT;46419825]I think if we came to this point it would be more subtle than that. Merely altering people so that they're more inclined to offer assistance than do nothing. Simple stuff like that. You could get crazy with it though. Like I imagine that while I don't think the left/right spectrum of politics is much of a straight line you could probably reduce the amount people relate to with one side or the other. That would be an interesting can of worms.[/QUOTE] My dad actually has a very interesting perspective on technology because he grew up in an era where computers were not as big of a thing as they are now. He sees people today that are completely reliant on technology to do even the most basic of things, like parallel park a car or tell them how to get from point a to point b. In his eyes, becoming reliant on technology is the worst thing that could happen because if, just if, something were to go wrong and we lost the ability to use that technology any more, we'd be out in the cold with no idea what to do. At the height of Greek/Roman art and architecture there was a refinement in style that couldn't be repeated by any civilization following them for hundreds of years. That's art, and it's one civilization. With the advent of computing and the global community we are sitting on the tip of a perilous peak. If an emp blast large enough to cut worldwide power were to occur, we'd be so fucked. Food production would cease, because all of our farms are largely automated. Manufacturing would stop because all of our factories are automated. Banking would shut down because all money is digital. Literally every aspect of our society would be destroyed, and that's just if an emp hits. Being reliant on something that we have created is one thing. Changing our chemical makeup with something we have created is another. The potential for damage is equivalent -if not in excess- to the potential for catastrophe.

If EMP hits it will cause some chaos but technology can be rebuilt. Tending farms manually is not some lost knowledge, we simply don't do it because we don't have to. If we did I am quite sure we could find enough workers to work on crops and stuff. All you need for farming is manpower, knowledge on how to do it is fairly basic really.

[QUOTE=Wizards Court;46419865]we actually live in a era where "morality" at least in regards to the fellow human so to speak, is at an all time high, nobody would give a fuck if some group was getting obliterated/enslaved on another side of the planet a few centuries ago. and there is the issue that power in general attract sociopaths and psychopaths, and capitalism encourages both. [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/[/url] [url]http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/01/09/3140081/bridge-sociopathy/[/url] [url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/fables-of-wealth.html[/url] [/QUOTE] morality (in the sense we are talking about) is a human concept and as time passes, the human mind evolves and society evolves. morality is a dynamic concept. the crimes against morality are still being committed, they have just changed form and now those in control have greater power to influence society through the media. i agree with you saying that psychopathic tendencies lead to greed and so on so forth, but you are only focusing on one area with no practical or moral solutions. it is all well and good saying the world is a better place, but doesn't that contradict with the links you posted?

Let's not put our morality in the hands of scientists thank you. I would prefer choice and failure over no-choice and success.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;46419998]If EMP hits it will cause some chaos but technology can be rebuilt. Tending farms manually is not some lost knowledge, we simply don't do it because we don't have to. If we did I am quite sure we could find enough workers to work on crops and stuff. All you need for farming is manpower, knowledge on how to do it is fairly basic really.[/QUOTE] The mass panic in the days and weeks following such an event would be to much for us to recover from easily. You're understating the effects. We are talking about the total collapse of modern communication, transportation and agriculture. Recovery is possible, but in a far lesser capacity than I think you are hoping for, and at at much slower rate.

[QUOTE=valkery;46420159]The mass panic in the days and weeks following such an event would be to much for us to recover from easily. You're understating the effects. We are talking about the total collapse of modern communication, transportation and agriculture. Recovery is possible, but in a far lesser capacity than I think you are hoping for, and at at much slower rate.[/QUOTE] That's all pretty hypothetical and in any case isn't hugely relevant to the debate over whether we should alter ourselves to help future generations. I get what you're saying though. It's basically the age-old, "Even with his knowledge in nuclear power the scientist stuck in a forest can't hunt for food" sort of thing.

Hmmm, maybe. Humans are notoriously terrible at taking external costs into account. But, you know, good fucking luck getting [I]anyone[/I] to let you implant YOUR subjective idea of morality into their head. There is no universal human morality that everyone agrees on. IMO there is no such thing as objective morality, period. Only ideology.

[QUOTE=MuTAnT;46420585]That's all pretty hypothetical and in any case isn't hugely relevant to the debate over whether we should alter ourselves to help future generations. I get what you're saying though. It's basically the age-old, "Even with his knowledge in nuclear power the scientist stuck in a forest can't hunt for food" sort of thing.[/QUOTE] It is a hypothetical. I was just trying to use it to illustrate the point that total reliance on technology -or in this case, altered brain function- is a bad idea because of the myriad of issues it could cause were it to go defunct.

good god you guys, this is how dystopian novels begin

[QUOTE=valkery;46419723]At best you will get a very small percentage of the population to agree with you, and the people that will are most likely the ones who aren't causing any issues in the first place. If you want change, you just have to suck it up and go slow. We move so fast now. So very fast. We expect change as fast as we expect an update to our computers, and that's bonkers. Just fucking nuts. On a purely moral scale, I'd say the implementation of bio-enhancement to our moral values would be the penultimate lapse of ethics. We would usher in an age of humanoid robots that is dependent upon medical technology to think. We'd be zombies basically. Half of what makes living interesting is the conflict. If everyone had the same opinions on everything and we all agreed on shit, life wouldn't be living, it's be existing. There would be no stress and difficulty or human experience: it would just be existing in a moral whitewash where you are biologically inclined to be pleasant. Sedated at birth to concur. While it's true that evil people aren't good and there is a lot of hate and moral disparity in the world, it's not a world worth living in if that all just goes away with an injection. We'd approach a Huxley-esque dystopia where everyone is genetically modified to be perfect, and the human element has been removed.[/QUOTE] I feel like I might be the only person (or at least a member of an extreme minority) who would find such an existence preferable. Some folks always say it's the stress and struggle that defines the human experience, but the more stress and struggle I face in my life, the more I actively resent it. I dunno, maybe I'm just kind of resentful of the idea of "flaws make us human", being diabetic, depressed, and anxiety prone with a mother who was unfairly resented by her family for being born with one hand, but I honestly can't see what makes stress and struggle preferable to "whitewashed" perfection.

[QUOTE=Dr. Fishtastic;46421555]good god you guys, this is how dystopian novels begin[/QUOTE] Also an utopian one. But dystopias are much more popular, since it's easier to think this is the best of all possible worlds. [editline]6th November 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;46420642]Hmmm, maybe. Humans are notoriously terrible at taking external costs into account. But, you know, good fucking luck getting [I]anyone[/I] to let you implant YOUR subjective idea of morality into their head. There is no universal human morality that everyone agrees on. IMO there is no such thing as objective morality, period. Only ideology.[/QUOTE] Not really. If you read the article with care, it suggests that problems aren't in basic approach, but human psyche's inability to understand the scope of their decisions (specifically, voting for political decisions) in modern world. The article says that humans will, vast majority of the time, only consider near future and people close to themselves, when the situation has come to the point that decisions should be considered in long term and how they affect things globally. This is a [B]quantitative[/B] change in moral thinking, not a [B]qualitative[/B] one. [editline]6th November 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=valkery;46419723]Half of what makes living interesting is the conflict. If everyone had the same opinions on everything and we all agreed on shit, life wouldn't be living, it's be existing. There would be no stress and difficulty or human experience: it would just be existing in a moral whitewash where you are biologically inclined to be pleasant. Sedated at birth to concur. While it's true that evil people aren't good and there is a lot of hate and moral disparity in the world, it's not a world worth living in if that all just goes away with an injection..[/QUOTE] So let's try to break this up: If the threat of what is basically species-scale suicide is gone, so is all worth from living a life? Seriously, that is some disturbed place you live in.

[QUOTE=valkery;46420733]It is a hypothetical. I was just trying to use it to illustrate the point that total reliance on technology -or in this case, altered brain function- is a bad idea because of the myriad of issues it could cause were it to go defunct.[/QUOTE] what's the alternative then? stop developing or using technology? you can keep outdated methods alive only for so long our outdated farming expertise will also be useless if there's a giant ash cloud covering the sky, I guess we should have learned subterranean farming!

It's taken us hundreds of years for humanity to reach this point and in under 20 years we've begun to destroy everything we worked for in order to achieve perfection. To say that humanity cannot proceed as-is and only technology can save us is one of the most narrow fucking minded things I have ever heard.

If Star-Trek taught me one thing; It's "don't fuck around with genetic augmenting".

Brave New world much? This is idiotic, diversity, for better or worse is what makes humanity great, including differing moral standards.

[QUOTE=Zezibesh;46422276]what's the alternative then? stop developing or using technology? you can keep outdated methods alive only for so long[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/L3zX19V.png[/IMG] The irony. It's killing me.

Isn't public education enough? This seems to interfere with our personal freedom a bit to much. They could do it to convicts like in StarCraft.

This article is seriously misunderstood. If it was written from perspective "Consider Human Augmentations That Increase Intelligence And Improve Cost-benefit And Risk Analysis Capabilities In Humans" this would be far better received. But now that it suggests that people could actually benefit from such in making ethical decisions, it changes to "Muh morals!" and "But dread and suffering are actually really nice". This is why we won't have nice things.

I agree with the points raised, specifically that humans are not capable of the same calibre of interaction with billions as they are on a more localised setting (eg family) also that groups feel less individual responsibility so are more likely to let a tragedy happen because they feel they can do nothing about it or are not responsible. I also agree that democracy is overrated (though it is currently kind of the preferable system regardless) and it's being misused and is contributing to terrible things happening worldwide. I am absolutely against artificial ethics, partly because they are engineered by society and it is therefore subjective in some cases what right our wrong is. Eg give a racist the power to force morality on others and suddenly you get apartheid 2 boogloo. Give a homophobe the power aand you get mass homophobia. Give a religious guy (traditionally th Guides for morality and ethics) and suddenly no sex before marriage, more gender roles. Or worst of all it could be used for profit, a corporation bribes someone to use it so people unnaturally prefer their product or to make people voluntarily Work longer hours for less pay.